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gracewithducks · 7 years

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Keep holding on (Genesis 32:22-31)

This afternoon, my husband, my children, and I are going to pile into our car and drive north… because this, friends, is the beginning of Michaela’s favorite week all year; this is the beginning of the week that even Braeleigh has been talking about for months now: today, this very afternoon, we will be on our way to camp.

The days before camp are always kind of crazy and chaotic around our house, because getting bedrolls and towels and clothes and shampoo for four people together, along with all the other pieces we need, is hard work. And at the same time, Mike and I are both trying to make sure our sermons are ready for Sunday, and trying to get a good jump on next week’s worship, too… it’s hectic. This year, we were actually pretty on the ball. This year, both my husband and I had our sermons put to bed a few days ago, so that we could avoid the stress of packing and sermonizing at the same time. But then, somewhere in between packing pillows and putting batteries in flashlights, we checked the news.

And I sure hope we have everything we need for the week, because packing suddenly seemed a whole lot less important, and those polished and finished sermons went out the window.

My heart is aching today. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling the last few days like I’m in another universe, another reality, maybe a movie where the writers have stretched the limits of plausibility in order to create a compelling drama for the heroes to survive.

I cannot believe that, in 2017, the Confederate flag and the Nazi flag are still being waved and saluted. How many lives were lost in the wars against everything those flags symbolize? At least three more were lost this weekend. How many sacrifices did we make – whole generations – to make sure that we would live in a future where every life matters, where no one is treated as less-than-human because of their faith or the color of their skin?

But here we are again. I cannot believe it… or really, I can believe it; after all we’ve seen, after the road that’s led us here, I can believe it. I just don’t want to.

And in the meantime, the man who should be the leader of the free world has been baiting a fragile and powerful madman over Twitter, and no one really knows where things are going to end… But what I can imagine is enough to terrify me. And it’s more than enough to break my heart.

I’ve had some sleepless nights this week. Maybe you have too. I’ve had some sleepless nights this week – and last night was one of them, wrestling, trying to figure out where God is in all this mess, and what, exactly, I’m supposed to say today.

So maybe it’s fitting that our scripture today is about a sleepless night. Yet again, not for the first time, Jacob finds himself alone in the wilderness… and he ends up wrestling, doing everything he can just to hold on, until morning comes.

The first time Jacob spent the night in this wilderness, he was all alone, running for his life, with nothing but a rock to pillow his head. That night, he dreamed of the ladder into heaven – and he found that God wasn’t far away at the top of that ladder, but God was right beside him, full of hope for the future.

Now it’s many years later, and Jacob is travelling with his wives and his children and his servants and his flocks. He’s on his way to reconcile with his brother, with the brother he wronged, the brother who wants him dead. It’s a journey that’s been a long time coming, and it’s hard and it’s humbling and I have to imagine that, for Jacob, this journey home is terrifying, too.

On the way, when Jacob comes to a stream, he decides to send his wives, and his children, and all his people and flocks on ahead across the stream, while he spends the night alone on the other side. Maybe he’s hoping for another hopeful dream, for reassurance that God is still with him. But reassurance isn’t what he gets.

This is where it gets strange: because while Jacob is there alone, “a man” appears and starts to wrestle with him. Out of the blue, out of the darkness, Jacob is caught unawares, and suddenly finds himself in the fight of his life. All night they wrestle, and when the stranger can’t get the upper hand, he hits Jacob on the hip and puts Jacob’s hip out of joint.

And now Jacob is weary, and he’s wounded, but still he refuses to let go. He’s fought too long and hard to quit now. “I will not let you go,” he says to the stranger, “without a blessing.”

So the stranger gives Jacob a new name, and the stranger blesses Jacob, and he disappears. And Jacob continues on his journey, with the sun rising over him, as he limps away. And the next day, he meets his brother, and they reconcile, and Jacob makes a new home.

This is one of those strange stories. We could probably shrug it off as a dream – we could theorize that Jacob’s subconscious, heavy with guilt and worried about conflict with his brother, conjured a dream where Jacob is struggling against the unknown, trying to wrest a blessing out of his uncertain future.

We could shrug it off as a dream, except for the fact that Jacob gets up and limps away. Dreams don’t put your hip out of socket; real struggles do.

This is one of those stories that I can’t explain… but I can feel it, all the same.

Because sometimes life doesn’t make sense… and most of the time, faith doesn’t. But there is truth, I think, in the knowledge that sometimes, the best we can do is hold on until morning, hold on until we find the strength to limp away.

Some of us have been wrestling through our own personal battles, attacked by our own shadows in the night, for a long time. But what we’ve seen this week, I think, is that as a people, as a church, as a nation, as members of a global community – we are still wrestling, wrestling with our past, struggling with our present, and fighting for our future.

What is so important here, I think, is to remember that Jacob isn’t fighting his brother. This isn’t an episode in the life-or-death struggle between Esau and Jacob. No, when this story happens, Jacob is on his way to make peace with his brother, when he finds himself in this unexpected battle. The process of reconciliation, of asking for and offering forgiveness – it’s never any easy one; there’s a reason the mystery at the heart of our faith is the promise that God forgives us… and the recognition that the process of forgiving us, of being reconciled with us, led God to a cross. Reconciliation – healing broken relationships, facing the reality of what we’ve done and what’s been done to us – it’s hard work, and it always costs us something, and it almost always leaves us bruised and limping.

But it’s work that has to be done. For our sake, for the sake of our loved ones, our children, our friends, our neighbors – and for the sake of our enemies, the people who’ve hurt us, the people we’ve wronged, for the sake of the strangers who are also someone’s family, someone’s child, someone’s neighbor, someone’s friend – for the sake of our future, we have to be willing to hold on, to face the darkness, to wrestle with our doubts and our demons – we have to keep wrestling, if we want to make it through to the other side.

Sometimes dawn is a long, long time coming. Sometimes all we have is the promise that darkness doesn’t win. And sometimes, even there in the darkness, we find beauty, and we are amazed to find that God is there with us, too.

In the morning, after the stranger has gone, Jacob looks back on his long night of struggle, and he reflects: “I have seen God.” Jacob is the one who decides that, as he wrestled for his life, he encountered God; it’s as if he didn’t realize, until the worst was over, that God had been with him all along.

We are never guaranteed that the life of faith will be easy. We are never guaranteed that we will come through it unscathed and unharmed – in fact, the opposite is true: we are warned, time and time again, that following God means taking up our crosses and praying in the garden and facing down the angry mob and wrestling along in the dark. There will always be people who find boldness in the nighttime, who find courage in anonymity, who are emboldened by the marching mob, who set upon us without warning. But here’s the thing: when the sun starts shining, their impulse is to run away, to hide again. We won’t let them hide anymore; we will refuse to just let go. Because when the sun rises, so do we. It may find us hurting, we may come up bruised and bleeding; we may get up limping and scarred, but we will rise all the same. For every Friday when the sun stops shining, for every time it seems like evil is winning, like hatred has the upper hand, like racism and prejudice and phobias run too deep – remember that God’s peace runs deeper, and love is stronger, and Sunday is always on its way.

It’s never hopeless. If Jacob and Esau can reconcile, if these two brothers who were born fighting, who were born into a broken family where their competition was nurtured and their rivalry encouraged, who were raised to believe there would never be enough – enough blessing, enough love, enough inheritance – for them both to make a home – if Jacob and Esau, two brothers who nearly destroyed and killed each other – if Jacob and Esau can reconcile, then there is hope for the rest of us members of this broken human family, too.

Again and again in scripture, people meet God in the wilderness. Hagar was a runaway slave – and she met God, in the wilderness. When she and her son were sent away to die, God heard their cries and showed them how to survive, in the wilderness. Moses will lead God’s people to freedom, and they will learn how to trust in God, in the wilderness. Elijah, the prophet running for his life, hears God in the sound of sheer silence, in the wilderness. Even Jesus withdraws by himself, and he fasts and he prays, and he is strengthened when he goes into the wilderness.

The wilderness is a big, lonely, barren place… but it’s also where Jacob dreams of God, and where he wrestles and finds that God is with him still. It can be a hard place to be, but it’s also in the wilderness, when our distractions are stripped away, that we are reminded of what matters most.

One of the things that always amazes Michaela at family camp, her own personal wilderness, is how – there, so far away from the lights of any city or town – there, there are so many stars in the sky, it literally takes her breath away. And it’s as if, every year, she forgets about the stars – every year, all year, she worries about the darkness, she frets about flashlights and nightlights and the shadows that go bump in the night, and she forgets, until our week in the wilderness, when she gets to stay up later than usual, when the silence is profound, and the night is so dark that the stars can shine through it – she forgets just how amazing nighttime can be. She forgets that the darkness is never really dark, because – as cliché as it may be – in the darkest night, the light shines even brighter still.

There is still much darkness in the world. Find the light. Be the light. Don’t give up. Keep holding on. Keep wrestling, keep fighting against hatred and prejudice and fear, keep dragging the shadows into the light. Keep speaking truth, even if your voice shakes. Even if you limp, keep going. God is with us, and morning is coming. Thanks be to God.

O God, sometimes we struggle to recognize your presence. Sometimes, the battles we face threaten to overwhelm us. We wrestle with our fears, with our doubts, with our grief and with our guilt… we wrestle with the hatred and the prejudice all around us… and sometimes, Lord, it’s all we can do to hold on. But you once told us that even faith as small as a mustard seed would be enough to move mountains. So help us to hold on to whatever we’ve got, and trust that you are still the God of mustard seeds and miracles, and you are with us in the struggle, and you are with us, and you will surprise us with blessings in our struggles, and you’ll hold us until the morning comes. In faith, with hope, we pray; amen.

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soccerstl · 7 years

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16th Annual Troy Buchanan Soccer Tournament

Jr. Braeleigh Marshall attacking for Troy-Buchanan up the wing. At Howell Central on April 6, 2017 Sponsored by Community State Bank, the tournament brings together five programs who play three games each between Monday and Thursday, Buchanan playing each of the participants (or four games). All games are being played at Troy-Buchanan at 4:15 pm except for one game Wednesday. I haven’t seen a…

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#Braeleigh Marshall #Holt Indians #Liberty Eagles #Lindbergh Flyers #Oakville Tigers #Troy Buchanan Trojans #Troy Community Bank Soccer Tournament

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kzk101ntwrk · 5 years

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8-year-old becomes youngest hunter to kill a 400-pound elk in Michigan: 'My dad hasn't set a record before'

8-year-old becomes youngest hunter to kill a 400-pound elk in Michigan: ‘My dad hasn’t set a record before’

This 8-year-old girl is a better hunter than both her father and grandfather.

The youngster was able to hunt down and successfully shoot a 400-pound elk. Not only does this give her bragging rights in her family, but it also makes her the youngest person on record to hunt an elk in the state of Michigan.

Braeleigh Miller was on the hunting trip with her dad when she made the shot, WNEM reports.…

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#Breaking #Business #Fox News #Market #murder #News #Politics #Stock #Tase #USA #World

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nikkiwonderlandblog-blog · 6 years

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Braeleigh and Bella 😍👭 #4thjuly18 #walkerpark #latepost✌

#walkerpark #4thjuly18 #latepost✌

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gracewithducks · 6 years

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Are you ready?

A couple of years ago, Braeleigh fell in love with the Curious George Christmas movie. I’ll bet some of you didn’t even know there was a Curious George Christmas movie! But there is – and the music is, unfortunately, kind of catchy… especially when we watched that movie oh, at least a hundred times that year.

One of the main songs in the movie is called “Christmas with a Monkey” – and I actually had to look that title up, because if you’d have asked me, I would have told you that the song is called “Are you ready?” Because the refrain of the song, which comes around again and again, is, “Are you ready, for Christmas day to come?”

And the song has been in my head all week… and I can’t help but answer, “No!” I’m not ready for Christmas, not by a long shot. Christmas is just over a week away – and there is far too much in my life that isn’t ready yet.

There is still too much to be done: presents have to be wrapped – in some cases, presents have to be picked out, ordered, paid for, received, and then wrapped… and of course, there are sermons to be written, services to be planned, details to be ironed out… and of course, that pesky little reality that I’m trying to do everything with a cast and crutches.

The season of Advent is traditionally a time to slow down, to think about what’s really important. If God is telling me to slow down, well, it didn’t work – not because I don’t want to slow down, but because, for a mother and a pastor a week before Christmas, slowing down just isn’t an option.

Am I ready for Christmas? Not a chance.

And that’s just all the external stuff – not the stuff that really matters. Advent is supposed to be about getting ready, cleaning out our spiritual homes so there’s room for Christ to enter in once more. But even I, the pastor, I surely haven’t prayed as much as I should, haven’t read the scriptures as much as I should, haven’t taken nearly enough time to reexamine my life and realign my priorities in light of that grace. There just isn’t enough time! I remember, as a kid, how long it took for Christmas to get here – but now it happens all too fast. And I am not ready, as a mother, as a pastor, or as a child of God, I am not ready to face the reality of Christ entering the world again.

We’ve had weeks of Advent, and I don’t know about you, but I’m just not ready. I’m eager. I’m excited. But I’m not ready, not by a long shot.

But there is good news. I still remember when I was getting ready for our first child to be born – almost a decade ago now – and I had this same overwhelming and crushing realization that I wasn’t ready. The nursery wasn’t ready, the walls weren’t painted, the crib wasn’t put together, the thank-you notes hadn’t been written, the parenting books were all unread, we didn’t have nearly enough diapers stockpiled or meals in the freezer… not to mention that I had absolutely no idea how to be a mom. We weren’t ready for Michaela at all – but do you know what? She came anyway. She came, and she changed our lives, and she filled us with love we didn’t ever know was possible. We weren’t ready, but still she came. And we still aren’t really ready – but we’re doing our best, and figuring it all out as we go.

That’s exactly how it is with God: we may not be ready, but God comes all the same.

When Jesus was born, the world wasn’t ready. Think about it: He was born to a young, unmarried woman – someone who wasn’t ready to be a mother, much less the mother of God incarnate. And Joseph wasn’t ready to be a father, not like this; he wasn’t ready for the mocking words and knowing looks from a community who no doubt would realize that this was not his son. They must have looked at each other so many times and said, “We’re not ready for this.”

And Jesus was born in a time when not just his parents but the whole world was unsettled and upside-down. He was born in an occupied country, born as a part of a people who’d been waiting and praying for a deliverer to come – but even they weren’t ready, not for a baby king, not for a suffering savior, not for a messiah who looked and lived like this.

From the very beginning, no one was ready for Jesus. He wasn’t even born in his parents’ home, but was born far away, after a long journey, surrounded by the howls and cries of the animals. His mother must have looked around and thought, “Not here, not now, not like this.” She wasn’t ready. The world wasn’t ready. But still he came.

That is what grace means: it means that God is at work in our lives when we aren’t ready, when we don’t understand it and don’t expect it and certainly don’t deserve it. But still God comes, to surprise us and to save us once again. We are never ready for God’s grace when we encounter it – and that is why we call it amazing grace.

I’m not ready for Christ to come into my life anew this year. But I know that he will come, all the same. I know that God knows that we haven’t done all the things we wanted to do or even all thing things that God has asked of us – but God still loves us, and even though we haven’t dotted all the “i”s and crossed all the “t”s, still Christ is coming– entering our lives and our hearts anew every Christmas, and every other morning, every other moment of our lives.

When God shows up, it doesn’t matter if your house is a mess, if your hair is a mess, if your to-do list is unfinished – or even unstarted. When God shows up, all that matters is whether we are willing to open the door, to open our hearts, and let God meet us right there in the middle of the mess. There is incredibly good news in remembering that we don’t have to get our lives together before we can come to God: instead, when our lives are still a mess – the bible says, “while we are yet sinners” – God comes to us, and God meets us here.

May God’s grace and love keep surprising us – even when we’re not ready!

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nikkiwonderlandblog-blog · 7 years

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I definitely pulled off this 4 layer cookie cake for Braeleighs 10th Birthday party! #yummmm #whowants1whenyoucanhave4 #bestbirthdaycakeever🎂

#yummmm #bestbirthdaycakeever🎂#whowants1whenyoucanhave4

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nikkiwonderlandblog-blog · 7 years

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Braeleigh and Berlyn were bored, so why not do some fancy painted bottles! They came out looking awesome. So glad Birdy could spend the weekend with us, We missed her! 👩‍🎨🖼🎨😍

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gracewithducks · 8 years

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“A World Worth Saving” (John 3:16-17) - Lenten Series, week 1

The house that John and Charles Wesley grew up in – was haunted.

True story. One Christmas Day, the family was startled and terrified by loud, unexplained noises. Susanna Wesley, John and Charles’ mother, said, “There was such a noise in the room over our heads, as if several people were walking, then running up and down stairs that we thought the children would be frightened.” The Wesley parents searched the house from top to bottom – but no intruder, no explanation, was found. When the strange noises continued, the family concluded there must be a ghost in the house. The oldest daughter decided to call the spirit “Old Jeffrey,” and the family would describe how Old Jeffrey continued “rattling and thundering in every room, and even blowing an invisible horn at deafening decibels” – until one day, Old Jeffrey disappeared, just as quickly and just as mysteriously as he arrived.[1]

Over the years, of course, there has been much speculation surrounding the Wesley family poltergeist. Many suspect that the creaks and groans of a settling house combined with overactive imaginations to create a story that, as so often happens, grew a little bit every time it was retold.

I can’t say for sure what the family experienced all those years ago. I can say, however, that my husband and I got the chance to walk through the Wesley family home last summer… and friends, I don’t know where Old Jeffrey has been for three hundred years, but I am pretty sure I know where he is now: Old Jeffrey hitched a ride home with us.

It’s the only explanation, really, that I can find for the strange phenomena we’ve experienced at our parsonage – just like the Epworth parsonage, our home has a poltergeist too.

He doesn’t make loud noises any more – or more likely, he tried stomping on the stairs and blowing invisible horns, but our family is just so loud all by itself that we don’t even notice him! Perhaps that’s why he’s taken up some new mischief…

You see, what happens is this… It’s easiest to see in the play room. There is this bizarre phenomenon in that room, where Michaela and Braeleigh spend so much of their time. It is possible to spend an entire afternoon in that room, putting toys in the toy chest, putting blocks and puzzle pieces away, putting books on bookshelves, hauling cups back to the kitchen, picking up remnants of old snacks, wiping marks off the walls and vacuuming the floor.

And I swear, as soon as you turn around – it’s just like a scene from the Sixth Sense: turn around for a moment, and look back – and it’s all back again. In the time it takes to coil the vacuum cord, the floor is covered again with toys and books and goldfish crackers and popcorn kernels and glitter and confetti…

It has to be haunted. There’s no other possible explanation, right?

I’m kidding. You know I’m kidding. Not about Old Jeffrey – that’s a fascinating story, and the Wesleys were convinced it was absolutely true. But I know the only mischievous spirits in our house are named Michaela and Braeleigh… all the same, friends, it is a marvel just how quickly a whole day’s work can be undone by their eager little hands.

Don’t even get me started on laundry. As quickly as you can fold it, Braeleigh is there to unfold every piece. Finally get everything clean and folded and put away – and more piles of dirty clothing just blossom in corners, dirty socks under the couches, pajamas crammed under beds, I swear, the stuff just breeds and multiplies.

And dishes. You can spend all kinds of time washing and drying and putting them away, and they’re back in a dirty pile right next to the sink the next time you turn around.

It’s exhausting! It’s frustrating! It’s enough to tempt a person to give up cleaning all together… really, truly, there are days it seems so much easier just to walk away and start all over again in a new house somewhere else.

You know, I hope, that when I complain about our loud and messy house, I do so tongue-in-cheek. I am fully aware that one day, our house will be quiet and our house will be clean – because our house will be empty; and we will long for the crazy chaos of today.

But I think, all the same, that what I feel at home – that exhaustion, the weariness, the resignation to the mess, the feeling that it’s not even worth cleaning any more, hardly worth trying any more, when nothing I do makes a lasting dent in the dirt – I think that so often, for so many of us, that’s how we feel about the world at large. We can start to feeling like we’re shoveling in a blizzard, and we’ve no sooner cleared a path than the wind and snow covers it over again; we can feel like we’re bailing out the Titanic with a teacup while the ocean rushes against us. The problems that we face – the injustices the suffering, the imbalances in the system – they can overwhelm us, and paralyze us. We can start to feel like nothing we do is making any difference at all… and it’s enough to make us give up all together.

And many Christians even find a great deal of comfort in the idea that our faith offers us an escape clause: just like I have days when I think it would be easier to start over in a new house – a lot of our brothers and sisters in faith hold onto that same hope. Let this world go to hell in a handbasket; we are going to leave it all behind, soon and very soon. Easter becomes our ultimate escape plan, the loophole that lets us off the hook: sure, the world is terrible, but it’s okay, because we get to go to heaven and leave it all behind. Some people of faith will even go so far as to argue that we shouldn’t even bother trying to change governments or affect policies or salvage the environment, because “it’s all going to burn anyway” and besides, Jesus is on his way back any minute, so any minute we’re not actively trying to “save souls” is just a waste of our time.

I can see the temptation, the allure, of a gospel like that. There are days when it sure would be nice to stuck my fingers in my ears and set my face towards heaven and forget about the rest. But, my goodness, what a dangerously and tragically anemic gospel that becomes.

Jesus – he hardly talked about heaven. He never stuck his fingers in his ears and ignored the sufferings or the stories of the people he met, and he didn’t condemn anyone along the way – or rather, the only ones he did condemn were the religious folks, the ones who were content to let their neighbors flounder while they themselves looked the other way.

We are so familiar with the words of John 3:16, that we can sometimes forget the larger message they’re a part of: it’s not just about believing in Jesus so we can live forever; our faith is about joining Jesus in showing God’s love to the world. Jesus came to love people, and he came to transform individuals – but Jesus also came to love, and transform, and redeem the whole world.

You know, there was a time, once, when God felt like we do. There was a time when God was so frustrated and exhausted that God tried starting over: we tell the story of Noah and the flood, and boy I know those little animals sure look cute, but friends, this is not a children’s story. It’s a story of death and devastation; it’s a story that reminds us that even God gets tired of fighting a losing battle sometimes. And just like I dream of starting over in a new house – that’s what God did: just wipe the slate clean, and start over again.

And almost immediately, it went wrong. Just like – if I did get that clean new house, the clutter would start piling up again in an instant, because my family would still be there, and that’s what we do – after God made a fresh start, there were still people on the earth after the flood. And people make messes. That’s what we do.

So God tried something new: in Jesus, God came – right into the mess. God came – to show God’s love, in the messes we’ve made. And God came to help us start, little by little, as much as we’re able, to clean it up.

God could have given up and walked away – but God didn’t give up on us. God still loved us, God so loved us, God so loved the whole world, that God put everything on the line to make that love known.

God still loves the world. And because God loves the world, because it matters to God, because creation matters to God, because people matter to God – they matter to us, too.

This week, our United Methodist Women hosted Peri Stone-Palmquist, who is a member of our congregation and also the Executive Director of the Student Advocacy Center. And just like its name suggests, the Student Advocacy Center advocates for students. Specifically, the SAC advocates for students who on the verge of losing their access to an education: homeless students, students in foster care, students who struggle with mental illness, students who have been bullied, students who are bullies, students who have been or may be expelled, the students who’ve been labelled and written off as “problem kids.” The SAC works with families and students and educators and administrators to find ways to help students stay in school, or get back into school, by addressing the underlying obstacles – and the SAC also works to advocate for laws and policies that will help students learn.[2]

It’s important work. And it’s often thankless, and overwhelming, and frustrating, and difficult work. And I was so struck by Peri, as she described how – even when everyone’s caseloads are already stretching them to their limits, more calls keep coming in, calls from families who are desperate, who have nowhere else to turn. And she said, “If I look tired on Sunday mornings – it’s because I am.” There are times when it seems like door after door just keeps closing, like there really isn’t going to be an answer or a way forward. And there are kids who struggle, even when we do everything we can – sometimes, it’s just not enough. And for every kid we help, there are so very many more in need. It just doesn’t end.

There are stories of heartbreak. But there are also the other stories: the stories of the kids who make it, the students whose lives are turned around, when a new solution is found, when a school board is willing to make accommodations or the students has help making amends, when a hopeless case isn’t hopeless any more.

There are days when those kids that everyone else had given up on – the ones who’d become “disposable” – when those kids learn that they still matter; when those students graduate high school and go on to college, and the whole course of their lives is never the same.

It matters. It’s hard, and it’s overwhelming at times, but it matters. For each student who finds a door opened, for each family who finds hope, and for each person that student and that family will impact throughout their lives – it matters.

And that’s why Peri does what she does: because it matters. It’s not hopeless, not as long as someone still cares.

That’s faith. That’s the promise of our faith: it’s not hopeless, as long as someone still cares. And God still cares. And because God still cares, we care, too.

This Lent, we are being challenged to fast from our apathy[3] – to give up on giving up, to allow ourselves to be moved and challenged by the world around us once again. Apathy is so very dangerous, to the world and to our own spiritual health: we can’t stop caring, because God never does.

It’s okay to get tired. It’s normal to get discouraged. Even Jesus had to go away to be renewed and restored from time to time.

It’s okay to get tired. But we can’t give up. The world matters too much to God; the people around us matter too much to God. And your “one wild and precious life” matters too much to waste.[4]

Spend time this week looking, listening. Say hello to your neighbors. Look around you. Listen to the voices and the stories. Read the news. Pray that God will break your heart for the things that break God’s; pray that you will find a way beyond your numb weariness to be recharged, to find a purpose, a direction, a new hope, a way that you can put your faith into action this Lenten season.

Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust as young man, once said, “The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.” May God save us from our indifference; may we learn to love the world as God does.

God, you know we sometimes feel so small. You know we get frustrated, when we feel like the problems are too big, and nothing we do makes a difference. Remind us, God, that even small steps can have a big impact. Remind us, God, that every life is sacred to you – even ours; and if we can show your love to even one person, then we will have made a difference. And help us truly to believe that you are still the same God who used one small lunch to feel thousands; in your hands, in your eyes, no offering is too small – it all matters. Renew our spirits, and re-ignite our love; in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Rectory,_Epworth

[2] Learn more – and help support this work – at www.studentadvocacycenter.org

[3] This Lent, our congregation is reading A World Worth Saving: Lenten Spiritual Practices for Action by George Hovaness Donigan (2013).

[4] This phrase comes from the poem The Summer Day by Mary Oliver, which ends with the question, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”

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